When Scot Loeffler became Virginia Tech's offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach in January, he heard from an old friend. Their email correspondence morphed into an 11th-hour recruitment that landed the Hokies a much-needed quarterback for their 2014 class.

A rising senior at Cedar Cliff High in Camp Hill, Pa., Andrew Ford announced his commitment to Tech last Sunday via Twitter. Whether he completes a pass, scores a touchdown or leads the Hokies to a championship is impossible to forecast — don't get me started on recruiting hype — but this much is certain:

Absent Loeffler, Ford doesn't pledge to Tech. Heck, without Loeffler the Hokies might not have evaluated, much less pursued, Ford.

Credit Cedar Cliff coach Jim Cantafio.

"There's a lot of great quarterback coaches out there," he said, "but Virginia Tech did themselves a lot of good by hiring Scot Loeffler. He's a phenomenal coach. I saw it first hand."

Cantafio saw it a decade ago. Loeffler was an assistant coach at Michigan, his alma mater, and Cantafio was coaching at Wilson High in West Lawn, Pa.

Wilson's quarterback was Chad Henne, and the expectation was that he would follow another of Cantafio's quarterback pupils, Kerry Collins, to Penn State. Loeffler had other ideas.

"The reason why Chad went to Michigan is Scot Loeffler," Cantafio said. "There ain't any other reason."

Now with the NFL's Jacksonville Jaguars, Henne told me as much when Tech hired Loeffler.

"Penn State, I was pretty much up there every other weekend, and I felt comfortable there," Henne said. "Scot recruited me out of high school and was the reason I left Pennsylvania to go to Michigan. Really owe a lot to him, how he developed me as a quarterback, as a young man. He's a pro-style offensive guy who prepared me for the (NFL). Just think he's very innovative, very intelligent."

Henne recalled attending a day camp at which Loeffler was working.

"In one day I felt his fundamentals improved me," Henne said.

Henne spoke to Ford prior to Ford's commitment, but that's getting ahead of the story.

In emailing Loeffler about Ford, who had offers from Pittsburgh, Virginia, Vanderbilt, Boston College and Syracuse, Cantafio knew Tech was recruiting other quarterbacks. Indeed, the Hokies' priorities were David Cornwell of Norman, Okla., and Jacob Park of Goose Creek, S.C.

Still, Loeffler invited Ford and Cantafio to campus for a June camp, where Cantafio said the 6-foot-3, 195-pound Ford showcased the left arm that threw 35 touchdown passes last season and helped Cedar Cliff average 46 points a game.

When Cornwell pledged to Alabama and Park to Georgia, Ford accepted Tech's offer.

"When I talked with (Hokies quarterback) Logan Thomas about Coach Loeffler, he told me he learned more from him in the first three months from him than he did in his previous three years," Ford told the Andrew Shay of the Harrisburg Patriot-News. "I also talked with Chad Henne, and he told me some of the things he learned in the first three months with Coach Loeffler he hasn't seen in the NFL."

Ford is in Oregon this weekend for Nike's Elite 11 quarterback camp and plans to graduate high school in December. He'll then enroll at Tech in January and participate in spring practice, pushing the likes of Mark Leal, Bucky Hodges and Brenden Motley as they compete to succeed Thomas.

"Nobody's smarter than Andrew Ford," Cantafio said. "I'll go to my grave on that one. He's intelligent, he's a 4.0 student, the kid is a football junkie. … Virginia Tech got a great quarterback. He may not be the No. 1, No. 2 rated kid in the country, but this kid is good. He's a great fit for Virginia Tech."

Cantafio talks a blue streak — thank goodness for digital recorders — and you can imagine him cleaning the feline's litter box with enthusiasm. But if Loeffler is half the Bill Walsh/Sid Gillman offensive savant Cantafio portrays, Hokies faithful will approve.

"We love Frank Beamer," Cantafio said. "He's a great guy, great (head) coach and everything else. But bottom line is, when you go to college, you'd better love your position coach, because that's the guy you're going to live with for four years.

"You're not living with the head coach. That's the guy you gotta be able to bond with, that's the guy you gotta trust, that's the guy you gotta have all the faith in the world in."

David Teel can be reached at 757-247-4636 or by email at dteel@dailypress.com. For more from Teel, read his blog at dailypress.com/ teeltime and follow him at twitter.com/DavidTeelatDP